My Issues & Priorities

As we watched the "Big, Beautiful Bill" gut medicare and SNAP, I was reminded just how dependent Kentucky is on Federal assistance for our basic necessities, like food & Healthcare. And how wrong that felt. We are a state in the wealthiest nation in the world, but we can not provide food and healthcare to all Kentuckians without hoping the dysfunctional federal government sends money. Why have a general fund with billions of dollars, sitting inert in Frankfurt, when our own citizens can't afford food and our rural hospitals struggle with slashed budgets?

We need to mandate that it is the State's responsibility to ensure all Kentuckians have access to basic, primary healthcare with no additional out-of-pocket costs. Legislation and constitutional amendments make this possible, but our current leadership has failed. This can  be done through a public contract with a  private organization that can provide primary medical care to our existing population. All Kentuckians should have no-cost access to primary healthcare. Rural folks  should have access to outpatient medical care without driving miles from home. Our basic healthcare should not be tied to an insurance company's profit margins. Quitting or losing a job should not jeopardize our basic healthcare.  Relieving this major financial burden can be achieved in a number of ways.

As I see it, we can fund these solutions in any of one of three ways: 

1. Use the existing general fund (currently over $15billion) as a jump start- Why do we put aside billions of dollars every year, if not to use it for the citizens that are paying the taxes? Our leaders would say it is for an emergency. Yet, our Legislators treat a lack of necessary healthcare access as discretionary spending instead of the emergency it is. Remember y'all, the State's money is paid with OUR taxes and we should decide how they are used.

2. Rebalance our tax codes - Every year Kentucky gives billions to privately held companies in tax abatements and tax incentives. We’re told this is done to generate economic development, but we must ask if these massive costs are worth it at the expense of our health?  If KY provided access to primary care, then companies would not need to provide insurance that covers primary healthcare. I wonder how much money that would save these companies in return? 

3. Use the tax revenue from Recreational Cannabis sales - The estimated tax revenue from a recreational cannabis industry is well over $300 million! This can be used to fund clinical access for the entire state (look at Michigan or Colorado for examples) and any additional income (like an increase in tourism and hospitality tax revenue) can be spent on feeding our folks or funding infrastructure upgrades.

How many of y'all reading this have worked in a service industry? Specifically a service industry that doesn’t have union representation or job protections as an “at will employee”? I've spent my working life seeing the in’s & out’s of the service industry. The one thing all of these jobs had in common - we lacked unions and were treated like easily replaced parts. I lucked out and my wonderful wife landed a job where she is represented by a union - the difference in working environments was night and day. She suddenly had property rights to her job, quality healthcare (shout out to the Marathon Health Cincinnati folks), and representation against unfair management practices. Her job offers a security that many Kentuckians lack.

I believe that Unions are a core pillar of our society, a collective voice for workers balancing against corporate fiduciary responsibility. Corporations have a primary responsibility to their shareholders' profit (thanks to the Ford v. Dodge decision) but are not held accountable for their employee’s well-being. Unions are our greatest tool for protecting our fellow workers from wage and workplace exploitation and history shows us this.

On January 11th, 1944 - during the height of WW2, FDR gave a State of the Union Address where he recommended economic measures to not only help America win the war but to also create a "fair and stable economy at home". These measures would go on to be known as the 2nd Bill of Rights or the Economic Bill of Rights and for 82 years the federal government has failed to adopt these measures. We  can forge our own future and work to enshrine these rights into our State's constitution. All Kentuckians should have these rights.  

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation.

• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.

• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living.

• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.

• The right of every family to a decent home.

• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.

• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment.

• The right to a good education.

Of all of the failures in the most recent State Budget, the Republican supermajority's biggest shame has been its failure to prioritize the public education of our State. When I was in KY public schools, there was a state-wide pride in the growing success in our education systems. When did the funding for students' futures become discretionary spending? Legislators voted themselves a raise - yet KY teachers and retirees are denied wage growth that matches the continued increase in cost of living. I was raised to trust the actions of others over their words. Regardless of what the sitting Republicans say, their actions show how far away public education is from their priorities. The money to fund our education system already exists, but the Republican supermajority has proven by their actions that education is less important than their raises or office renovations.

Our current legislature does not want to provide for our public education. Bottom line.

I would  propose that State Legislator compensation be capped and any further rate increases must be exceeded by a raise to the salaries of teachers and other public sector employees.

Oh boy, this issue is close to my heart and was a primary reason I finally became pissed off enough to run for office. My disdain for bad leadership is hard to understate, we've all had a toxic boss or three that has made our working life miserable. While in the Army, I was able to see and experience the qualities that make up good leaders - and bad ones. While in the service industries, my skin crawled every time I heard a manager talking about "reducing labor budgets" like the folks being paid are just replaceable numbers on a balance sheet. I've also had many loud discussions with business owners who consider staff safety concerns as "non-essential expenses".

To use a simple analogy, A good leader makes sure all their troops are fed before eating while a bad leader is served first. Does the leader, manager, supervisor, or politician put the well-being of the folks they are charged with leading before their own gain or that of their donors? No? Then they are failing their constituents  and should be replaced, plain and simple. 

Leadership is a responsibility, not a job title or description.  Our representatives should be held to the highest standards for their actions. When a leader is empowered to make decisions for a group of people, they  have a duty to be transparent about those decisions and accept the outcome  - good or bad. A leader that refuses to take accountability when something goes wrong and then grows from it, has once again failed. 

Transparency should be the bare minimum that we expect, and accept, from our government. These are elected, PUBLIC officials being paid by our tax dollars and being charged with the task of bettering our shared Commonwealth. We, the voting public, need to be given the time and access to track and follow what is happening with OUR legislative body. Close door meetings should be left to shady private company dealings, not the halls of our State Capitol. We've all heard the  excuses of "there is not enough time, we had to rush things through without public comment". We have access to so much technology that invalidates much of this argument. Y'all, it's the 21st century and we need a government that can act like it.

As a rather rambunctious child, my parents spent a lot of time telling me to, "go outside and play". I spent most of my free time as a kid running around the woods of Northern Kentucky. My father was an avid outdoorsman, with shelves full of natural wildlife and survival books. He patiently taught me everything I had the curiosity to learn. By middle school I was able to track deer, start a fire with flint and steel, could identify most local birds by their calls alone, and knew which plants or animals to avoid. All of this is to say: My passion for the outdoors and love of our local wildlife has been with me my whole life. Even now, we try to make our home yard an oasis for the local critters, our grass is allowed to grow and our hillside is covered in clover blooms.

I will protect our local environment not for campaign promises, but because I  love the beauty and natural diversity of our region. I understand that "protecting the environment"  needs to be a multi-pronged approach. It must include the folks that know the land the best. Farmers, conservation workers, environmental students from our local universities, researchers with decades of experience - if we are not consulting these experts on how we can best protect our local ecology then it is just another sign of undeniable failure by our elected leaders. At the end of the day - we all breathe the same air, drink the same water, and listen to the same birdsongs.

I will work with conservation and environmental experts to develop legislation that adds permanent protections and additional funding to our WMAs and Parks.    

A note on data centers and their environmental concerns - If we look at the history of emerging technology we can clearly see that progress and exploitation often go hand-in-hand. Whether it is during the Industrial Revolution, the Information Revolution, or during this last decade - we see what happens when new technology is used without caution or regard to the consequences. The explosion of data centers we’ve seen across the country  have been recklessly implemented by aggressive investors and compliant governments. The locals where the data centers have already been built are beginning to experience serious issues and have been raising concerns (contaminated water, rising power costs, noise pollution, lack of long term job creation) for years. Their cries of concern continue to be disregarded in the name of private profit. We need to slow down and ask ourselves if the short-term economic gains are out-weighed by the long-term harm to our environment and our day-to-day lives.  

Kentucky has a storied history full of lessons about the overreach of concentrated power - whether we want to discuss the bootleggers' response to prohibition, coal mine Union-busters, the FBI's persecution of Black Community groups via CoinTelPro, or today's issues surrounding the tactics of modern day ICE and federal law enforcement. It all involves out-of-state, armed men coming into our neighborhoods and using the threat of violence to demand compliance. I oppose all forms of armed overreach that has, unfortunately, become a common tool abused by our Federal Government.

Trying to police a community that you have no knowledge of is closer to an occupation rather than "protecting and serving". If Federal forces cannot cooperate, communicate and follow the lead of local law enforcement then we are skirting on the edge of Federal Overreach. The Federal Government does not have the right to terrorize Kentuckians because of ideological differences. I will work with both law enforcement and advocacy groups to ensure that all Kentuckians are protected from Federal Overreach. 

In Kentucky, we have proudly been a safe landing place for refugees fleeing conflict & famine and have often led the nation in the number of refugees accepted - I want us to uphold that tradition and never forget that a part of our National Identity has always been "the great American Melting Pot".